J and I enjoyed a pleasant hour listening to cute Preppies (how little they seem!), Grade Ones and Grade Twos performing on various instruments.
Some were accompanied by their music teachers.
Some were performing publicly for the first time.
One little girl had stage fright when her turn came and her mummy went on stage with her. That drew lots of sympathetic Ahh's and Aww's from the audience. When she did eventually play, she actually did very well.
As Rebecca (Beth's music teacher, who came to support her students) said, it was good the girl conquered her fear and got on with her performance. If she had given up then, it would be much harder the next time.
There were some virtuosos. I am thinking Joshua J (Poseidon's Throne and Arabesque, played with flourish and without score) and Jerry D (Fur Elise).
Beth's performance was one of the shortest: 36 sec was all it took on my videocam. Was so relieved that she made it through without a single mistake. That's awesome considering how she plays at home. Maybe she needed the adrenaline rush to give her that extra edge.
We're rewarding her with a lunch order today: the canteen special is beef pie with free cookie.
More than 2 weeks have gone by since Election 2010 and still no government.
Will it be the Coalition? ALP?
None of the locals I know seems frazzled. Life goes on.
A fellow stallholder I met on Sat gave me a mini-lecture on the pros and cons of life under the Libs vs Labor.
When the Libs were in power, they cut services, health and education. Her son (now 32) was one of those youths who fell through the gaps because there were no vocational options like TAFE. Apparently the Libs were all for tertiary education but didn't care so much about every child getting a chance. She says the Libs were able to do the damage they did because they were in power for so long.
Mondays are particularly challenging for our family.
They probably are for most people, having to switch from pleasure and do-nothing for 2 days to a mindset of school and work. At least the mums in the reading room think so.
Spent a fair amount of energy this morning trying to rouse the girls. The little one eventually woke, and in a cheery mood too, which made things easier. The 8 yo was impervious to reasoning, nagging, threats and fish-wife shouting (she knows Mummy too well). She merely burrowed deeper under the covers, and turned her back on me.
Why do I keep reverting to default mode when I know it doesn't work? I know I need to develop a new vocab just for the 8 yo, and more creative (aka devious) parenting strategies that do not involve reverse psych, cos she's too clever to be taken in any more. But it's such HARD WORK. And just when you think you have them figured out, something changes again and down the hill you go.
After reading with Beth's class and swopping plans-for-the-morning with my reading partner, I stopped at Tasman Meats in Synnot Street - still the best value meat retailer in the 'hood - and bought a week's worth of supplies.
Where I learned that there is minced beef and there is minced beef.
Just as Coles offers 3-, 4- and 5-star beef mince, TM also grades its mince. You need to read the labels carefully. It can be as cheap as $3.99/kg if you buy at least 2 kg, right up to $11.49/kg for extra lean mince.
I bought nearly $45 worth today - 1/2 kg pork mince 1/2 kg chicken leg mince 1/2 kg premium lean beef mince 1 kg chicken breast fillet with skin on ($3/kg cheaper than skin off) 1 kg gravy beef 1 pack of frozen cooked and peeled shrimp
Am boiling up a chicken carcass to make stock to cook chicken porridge. We had roast chicken for dinner last night (from Safeway) and hubby helpfully shredded the leftovers as he was making himself lunch for work, so I have plenty of shredded chicken for the porridge.
Possible menu plans for the week:
Chicken pie Roast chicken with potatoes Pasta Beef stew Fried rice with minced pork and shrimp
Have vacuumed the kitchen, swept the yard, washed the car (the first time in 4 years, not counting the manual car wash) and done some weeding. Those star-shaped weeds are VERY stubborn compared to the grasses, which come out easily. Decided against putting the newly acquired tomato plant out in the garden. Am bound to forget to water it and it will suffer the fate of all our bought plants...
Only 12.36 pm! Feel very accomplished today. \LOL/
Three years on, the Yamaha concert has a different feel for us.
It's like an extended gathering of family and friends. We may not know the pint-sized performers so eager to show us what they've learned over the course of 8 months, but we clap enthusiastically nonetheless.
And when our eyes meet the eyes of complete strangers next to us - proud parents and grandparents - we exchange knowing smiles. "Wasn't that a fantastic effort," we want to say to each other - but don't.
This year, we are much more relaxed as a family. I fuss less about Beth's outfit. We are more confident about the routine: how early we need to be, where we should meet. The location is the same as last year, and we now have a sat-nav, which makes for a much more pleasant ride, although The Voice gets irritated when we do not stick to the recommended route.
Having said that, a Singaporean can't get rid of certain traits.
Like playing the Solfege CD all the way to Brighton in the hope it will help Beth rehearse Adventurous Kids and Rock and Roll.
I am secretly worried about the latter, because it's an ensemble piece and Beth is the only one in her class playing Part 3. If she messes up, there will be no one to hide behind. Her teacher Rebecca was sick the day before the concert and they had a replacement teacher in who couldn't possibly know where they'd got up to in their preparations. The Sat before was the elections and the school was used as a polling centre, so lessons were cancelled. And the Sat before that, Beth missed the class because of flu, and lost another chance to rehearse with her classmates.
If ever there was an example of Murphy's Law, this surely was it.
Then when we flicked through the programme, we realized Beth's class was on first.
I wasn't sure that was a good thing. But as life turns out, my worry was wasted. The children dug in and put in that extra effort to shine, listened to each other and maintained good eye contact with Rebecca. I was especially grateful that Beth was seated right in front - maximum eye contact! - and that Rebecca played Beth's part along with her just that bit louder.
Once Beth's item was over, I was able to enjoy the rest of the concert much better.
I particularly enjoyed the class performances where the songs were more complex, with that 'wow' factor. The kind of song that, after you heard it, you would turn to your neighbour and both of you would have that slightly awestruck, admiring expression, having heard an amazing result from such young performers. Like Cosmic Dance and A Monster.
And the advanced performers...
There was this young girl (Jordanne called her 'beautiful' because she had a sparkly maroon sequinned dress on) who so expressively played her own composition and will represent Yamaha at an event in Indonesia, and a young man who improvised on Gershwin.
You might say they offer a glimpse into a possible future for the ones who persevere through the levels with the talent and right attitude.
My favourite JW has just come by to give me a leaflet on this weekend's convention at the Rod Laver Arena.
The theme: How Can You Draw Close to God?
Definitely relevant and timely, especially for seekers and backsliders.
Jennifer tells me there's going to be a full-costume Bible drama on Sun afternoon, which should be fun for the kids.
"Where's your little one by the way? It's very quiet today," she observed.
There you have it - the reason I keep opening my door to JW, even if I've no wish to be drawn into a discussion or debate on whose version of The Truth is more accurate. They are certainly the only professing Christians who put themselves out there regularly, and I admire them for it.
On Election 2010, I just read an interesting offering by independent Rob Oakeshott, who is one of the individuals with the unenviable privilege of being courted by the major parties and whose vote could help form a working government in the next few weeks.
His suggestion is for a multi-party government, with (possibly) Kevin Rudd reporting to Tony Abbott, and Malcolm Turnbull serving under Julia Gillard.
How original is that! I hope all good-intentioned pollies give RO a hearing. It's time to put aside political prejudices, take a serious look at the strengths of available leaders and restore the interests of all Australians to the top of the agenda where they rightly belong. All this party bickering and finger pointing is laughable; it reminds me of squabbles between children - "It's mine." "No it's not, give it back!" "That's not nice!" "M-u-m!!"
For that reason, I think Julia Gillard has demonstrated great leadership by barring Mark Arbib from taking part in ABC's Q&A show. I haven't followed his political career, but received wisdom has it that he is one of the factional power brokers that staged the Rudd coup. In other words, he helped install Julia, and the suggestion is she is beholden to him, so it's interesting she's now turning the tables on him. For the past 2 months, she's been living in the shadow of Rudd's demise. Even though she's been holding it together pretty well with all her Moving Australia Forward exhortations, she can't be immune to the suspicion and negativity, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels she came into power the wrong way. It's refreshing to see her doing something Prime Ministerial for once.
The gardening guy's mum is (still) in hospital with shingles. She's been in there for 3 weeks, has endured a heart attack, and is being moved to another ward. I pray for her and the whole family, that she recovers from this ordeal and her family get to be with her for as long as is good for all of them.
And speaking of gardening, Melbourne has eased its water restrictions for the first time in 4 years. That's pretty much the length of time we've been in Aus. Now we can water our gardens and wash our cars when we wish. Not that I'll be hurrying to do either!
Hubby reminds me we have to find alternative ways to engage Beth and encourage her in her learning of Chinese.
So I'm looking out for Chinese DVDs, cartoons, even Nintendo DS games - anything that will make her want to stick with it and improve her mastery of Chinese.
Just this afternoon, she threw a tanty in the carpark and refused to get out of the car, saying she did not want to go for Chinese class. Hubby was able to persuade her - how exactly I do not know - and in the end she was the one who hurried him along as she did not want to be late for class!
I have just looked at AsianParent.com and am now looking at ChineseForSmartKids.com. AP has books with CDs and VCDs and CFSK has a sample movie that looks like it could be fun for Beth to play with.
I wonder what Beth will have to say about today's Chinese class. She didn't even manage to finish her homework for the week. Can't believe she had the audacity to just go for class like that.
PS. Hubby tells me there is a strange car parked outside our house with a group of young people in it and I need to be careful because they look like they have a catapult. Another difference between SG and AUS - since when did peaceful law-abiding citizens have to fear hooligans who might frighten or attack them for no reason? This is our neighbourhood, our street. Makes me mad just to think that we have to put up with such nonsense. Why isn't there enough law enforcement muscle out there to protect the innocent majority?
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